Police seize Rp 29 billion in bogus rupiah in three years

JAKARTA (JP): Police revealed on Thursday that from January 1997 through February of this year, they have seized counterfeit rupiah that amounted to Rp 29 billion (US$3.7 million) and called on the public not to hesitate to report to the police when they received fake bills.

National Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Dadang Garnida told reporters that police findings showed an increase of counterfeit rupiah being circulated over the past three years in Java and Greater Jakarta areas.

Officer Dadang said the circulation of counterfeit bills reached "0.0076 percent of the total cash in circulation, which ranged from Rp 55 trillion to Rp 58 trillion," but he did not explain his calculations.

He said that although the amount of fake rupiah was still below the alarming level of 0.1 percent of total money in circulation and did not affect the country's economy, the frequent discovery of counterfeit bills had raised public concern.

"Although the economy has not been affected, circulation of fake money has created restlessness among the general public," he said, stressing the need for involvement of the police and central bank officials to cope with the problem.

The total revealed by the National Police was Rp 5 billion more than that of Bank Indonesia's, that stood at Rp 23.8 billion.

Bank Indonesia's director for cash circulation, H.Y. Susmanto, who accompanied Dadang in the meeting, said that the numbers were different because the central bank had not included the Rp 5 billion fake bills found during police raids in Bogor and Ciawi, West Java, that were still uncut from the sheets.

Noting the increased circulation of the fake rupiah, Susmanto said that Bank Indonesia traced Rp 4.4 billion in 1997, Rp 6.1 billion in 1998 and Rp. 6.7 billion last year. The first two months of this year alone, the amount of counterfeit rupiah in circulation reached Rp 6.5 billion.

Chief of the special police unit for counterfeiting offenses Col. Edyana, explained that 398 out of the 411 cases of counterfeit money in 1998 were already solved. While in 1999, only 10 were left unsolved out of 330 cases.

Edyana said that until last February, police had completed investigation into 60 of a total of 64 cases of counterfeit Rp 50,000 bills. "On March 7, police raided a house in Bogor and seized counterfeit bills worth Rp 1.875 billion. The man who rented the house, identified as Alfian, got away during the raid."

He said police suspected that those dealing in the counterfeit money business would be a syndicate closely related with illegal financial sponsors, owners of a printing machine with access to certain quality paper and distributors.

Edyana warned that people who had received counterfeit rupiah should report to the police and should by no means use it for their spending, as such an action was considered helping distribute or circulate the counterfeit money.

"Those involved in distribution of fake money violate Article No. 249 of the criminal code and are subject to four and a half months imprisonment", he explained.

"People who receive fake money prefer to spend it again, because BI will not replace them with real ones," he said, pointing out that such an undertaking also violates the law.

"We will trace the distribution chain of the money," he said, explaining that should the chain be broken, they would further develop the investigation through other avenues.

Dadang identified ways in which fake moneys are used in inter-syndicate transactions involving a large amount of cash or purchasing goods in bulk.

"In such transactions, usually the ratio of counterfeit to real money is three to one," he added.

Susmanto dismissed speculations about the possibility of using paper of old Brazilian money by removing the ink printed on the cruzeiro bill and have it reprinted with the Indonesian currency.

Dadang said that most counterfeit money was denomination Rp 50,000, while in the past, even Rp 100 and Rp 500 bills were faked by those who planned to disrupt the country's economy. Dadang, however, did not elaborate. (06)